Home made dubbing

[Kieran_R 0]

I was just wondering how I would go about making my own dubbing.

I've heard you can make it from furs but I don't know how to do this?

Any suggestions?

Thanks

 

[Mickalo 0]

Here an excellent link for Dubbing techniques and materials it has some great info. Should help you get started:

 

http://ukflydressing.proboards.com/thread/4046

 

Mike

[Kieran_R 0]

this is perfect, thanks a lot

[Mickalo 0]

Glad it was helpful.

 

Mike

[Stevester 0]

Here are a some tips based on my experience.

 

1) Don't use your good tying scissors, get an inexpensive pair of Fiskars from a hobby or department store. When you need to cut up pieces of hide and shear the fur you will thank me.

 

2) I do have an old coffee grinder to mix dubbing but a can with a hole so you can blow air in with a hose or compressed air can works almost as well. You can also throw your fur into a jar add some water and a drop of dish soap, cap the jar and shake. Pour the mixed, damp fur out onto a towel or paper, rinse with clean water and let dry. Its more time consuming but cheap and you most likely have everything.

 

3) Short fur can just be blended as is. Fur with long guard hair, such as sable, doesn't blend well in my experience. You can mitigate this by cutting small pinches of fur and hold the guard hair tips and brush out the under fur and proceed as above.

 

4) Hanked artificial material such as antron or melon yarns must be cut up into shorter pieces to blend well, especially if you use the blender. No longer than 1/2" (about a cm to you non-US folks).

 

As with most tying stuff, try it yourself and see what works and what doesn't.

 

Steve

[FlaFly 0]

There was a recent thread concerning using cat and dog fur/hair for dubbing. Like Mickalo's article said, you can use virtually any animal's fur for dubbing. Some people on this forum have also written about using synthetics for dubbing. Or you can keep your eye out for a fresh roadkill.

[Kieran_R 0]

haha i think I'll leave the road kill, but thank you for all the help:)

I'm sure I will save some money and produce some good dubbing

thank you all

[JohnP 0]

Another thing you can do is check the auction sites (ebay) for fur scraps. I have gotten beaver, mink and other fur scraps really cheaply, and they make excellent dubbing. I also picked up an entire muskrat skin at a flyfishing show for about $5. Much cheaper than buying the tiny fur pieces the fly tying supply houses sell.